"A team just has to play in a sense like he doesn't exist," Popovich said. "Nobody cares if you lost a good player, right? Everybody wants to whip you, so it doesn't do much good to do the poor me thing or to keep wondering when he is going to be back or what are we going to do.

"We have to play now, and other people have to take up those minutes, and we have to figure out who to go to when in a different way, and you just move on."

The Spurs entered Tuesday's game with the Mavericks sporting an 8-5 record, an achievement considering Leonard has yet to play because of right quadriceps tendinopathy. They are also without point guard Tony Parker, who is recovering from surgery in May to repair his ruptured left quadriceps tendon.

Parker has been working out steadily with the hopes of returning either this month or in December. There is no timetable for Leonard's return, and Popovich said last week that his rehabilitation has been "difficult" and is "coming along more slowly" than Parker's.

Asked if there is "light at the end of the tunnel for Leonard, Popovich said, "Oh, sure. He's gonna be back sooner rather than later."

But after pausing, he added with a chuckle, "Whatever nebulous (stuff that was). As soon as I said it, I thought, 'What the hell does that mean?'"

After three years as a part-time employee covering mainly high school sports, Tom Orsborn became a full-time employee at the Express-News in October 1985. He's covered the Dallas Cowboys and the NFL since 1999 and has also covered the Spurs, the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, and a variety of other events, including 14 Super Bowls.